Friday, April 30, 2010

Obama's Labor Department wants companies to comply with wage, job safety and equal employment laws. The New York Times' Steve Greenhouse has the story:

In a move that will affect most American corporations, the Labor Departmentplans to require companies to prepare and adopt compliance plans aimed atensuring they do not violate wage, job safety and equal employment laws. Read the whole thing here.

FedEx has developed a significant ground operation to compete with UPS. FedEx even uses ground transportation to transport its "air" packages where feasible. UPS simply wants a level playing field to compete with FedEx.

Your comment that UPS is at a disadvantage because its workforce consists of union members is an insult to every Teamster who helped build UPS into one of the most efficient, well-respected companies in the world. That system is labor intensive and requires thousands of dedicated employees to sort and deliver those packages.

You say that union employee equals "labor woes." I would hardly consider one 15-day work stoppage in my 32 years as a Teamster at UPS the kind of labor strife that has impeded UPS's ability to expand and be profitable. Last time I checked, UPS was still making billions of dollars in profits a year. And that, despite the fact that UPS was saddled with union employees.

Smith convinced Congress to put FedEx Express employees under the Railway Labor Act, even though it covers only airlines and railroads. The RLA creates barriers for local union organizing, making it as hard for unions to organize at FedEx as Mormons to organize under Stalin (to borrow Harold Meyerson's line from today's Washington Post op-ed ).

The House of Representatives has voted to take Fred Smith’s legal loophole away from him in this year’s FAA Reauthorization bill. As the legislation makes its way through Congress, Fred Smith is desperately trying to hang on to his special deal.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has ended its nearly three-month-long listening sessions regarding changes in Hours of Service rules. The Teamsters testified at the first hearing in Washington, D.C. This is an important issue for Teamster truck drivers.